Goodnight, Dommy
by pancakesandtables
Summary: I should've posted this yesterday sorry


**Death Bed ***rough draft 01*****

At the end he realized how he should've seen it all along. His world came to a stop before he even knew what had happened. Nat didn't go to work that night but instead was on the phone for hours upon hours in her room, her door shut and locked. When she finally did open it, she instructed Ty to stay in the kitchen where he was happily eating his dinner, watching the television from his seat.

The assassin was on the phone for another hour before there was a ring at their door. Nat answered it to see that Tweety had arrived. She must've been expecting him because as soon as he stepped into their home he embraced Natasha in a tight hug. Ty, stuck in a confused state sat in the kitchen watching the two in his pajamas. He felt like something was wrong, Dommy would make some snide joke or comment about the two but that was the weird part. She wasn't back from work yet, which wasn't too unusual. Sometimes she'd be gone for days. It had been three so far. Before she left she said it would only be two at most. She had never lied to him-not to his knowledge of course. But why would she say two when she was gone for three? Maybe she had said three and Ty wasn't listening correctly. That also didn't make sense though. He listened to Dom most of the time, even when it seemed like he didn't. The little boy hung on her every word. So why had it been three days?

The two adults talked at the door for what seemed like hours, discussing something Ty couldn't hear or understand, but every so often he would see Tweety's eyes gesture over to him-they looked watery and sad. As if he was on the verge of tears. He thought that maybe he needed a hug.

The tired six year old put his head down on the wooden table to rest his eyes for a few minutes. He hadn't noticed he'd been napping until Nat walked over and gently shook him.

"Let's go to bed." Her voice was monotone and she leaned down to lift the little boy off his chair. The kid watched over Nat's shoulder as Tweety put a blanket down on the couch and that's all he was able to see before being greeted with the back of Nat's bedroom door, casting Tweety out of view.

"I want to see Tweetybird…" He said quietly, tilting his head up at the assassin as she set him down on the bed, beginning to take off her shoes.

"No, you'll see him tomorrow."

 _Tomorrow?_ "What're we doing tomorrow?" Tyler asked as Nat tucked him underneath the duvet.

"Sleep, Ty." She mumbled, climbing underneath the covers as well trying to think of how in the hell she was going to explain everything. Her head hurt and her heart ached.

Words seemed to be as blurred as his vision. He could hear Nat's voice but couldn't make out the words she was saying. Ty grumbled and rubbed his eyes, feeling himself being pulled into a sitting position.

" _You have to get dressed."_ Someone was talking to him but he was too exhausted to say anything back.

When his vision finally did clear up he could see Nat was wearing a short black dress and through the doorway he could see Tweety was wearing his nice t-shirt, walking around the living room whilst brushing his teeth.

Furrowing his brows, Ty looked up at the assassin. "Where're we going?" He grumbled as he felt his shirt being pulled off and being replaced by a clean one.

Nat paused, taking a deep breath before setting the pants and shoes down on the bed.

"We're going to a funeral." Great. What a great way to _begin_ to explain this to him.

"A funeral for who?" He asked in a worried tone, though he assumed maybe it was an agent who worked with Nat or Tweety, someone he didn't know.

There was a slight pause before her answer, which was delivered so softly he almost didn't hear her. "For Dom."

... _For Dom?_

Ty began giggling, shaking his little head back and forth. "No it's not!" Was the only thing he could seem to respond with. Dom was at _work_ , it couldn't be her funeral. "No Natter, Dommy is working." He correctly informed the redhead, who was now helping him put on his shoes.

"She died in the last 72 hours. Don't know how." She finished tying his shoes and stood up, looking around for something. Ty stood in front of the bed, a blank expression on his face. He didn't know how to react. Why wasn't Nat reacting? Why didn't she even seem slightly disturbed or upset at all. Did she not care? She just told him that mother figure had died for some reason they didn't know in the last three days.

"...Will she be coming with us?" Ty asked, his mind rejecting the information Nat had told him mere seconds ago.

"She's dead Ty. We're going to her funeral." Nat explained again, walking past him to open the door. Death for her was something that was apart of everyday life, but she had always assumed it would be her going first, not Dom. It was harder when someone close died but moving past it was not questionable. She needed to be there for both Ty and Tweety, so dwelling on this wasn't going to help anyone.

When she told him, there were no details, no in depth explanation. It was that she was stating a fact and nothing more. Ty didn't know what to do. Instead he nodded his head and let Nat finish dressing him up. It was only after she had finished and they were standing in her bedroom doorway that he realized they were going to a funeral. To _Dom's_ funeral.

Ty's nose scrunched up and his eyes became filled with tears.

"This isn't a fun game. I don't want to play it anymore." He told her as a few of the tears fell down his cheeks.

Suddenly the bedroom door was pushed open and Tweety walked in, looking at the two of them.

"Ready?" He asked, before noticing Ty's tears.

"Yes, let's go." Nat said, giving the kid a pitiful glance before passing Tweety into the living room with the expectation both boys would follow.

"It's not a fun game..." Ty said again, looking up at Clint, his eyes now a glossy blue from the previous tears.

"I don't like it either, Ty. C'mon though, _she would want us to_." He said as softly as he could, reaching down to hold Ty's hand and gently lead him into the living room, with the little boy mumbling from behind, " _No_ _ **she wouldn't**_ _."_.

The car ride was silent. When they got to the church Ty saw a few familiar faces. Logan was there, sitting in the back corner with a bottle of something. Illyana was at the front, sitting with Autumn on her lap. There was also Wade, who was standing beside a casket at the front of the church, tapping on the side against the priests will. A few other people were there that Ty recognized but couldn't put names to. Someone Ty didn't know nor had ever seen was up speaking but he wasn't paying attention.

The little kid turned around in the bench and looked over towards the back of the church, seeing a woman sitting on the furthest bench from the front, closest to the large wooden entrance doors and a few more people scattered around. Ty didn't get a good look at any of their faces before Nat pulled him back into a sitting position between her and Tweety, facing the front, telling him it was rude to stare.

It wasn't really fair, Ty decided after a few minutes of sitting at this 'funeral'. Dom had told him not to worry about her dying because she was lucky, and was always going to be lucky. She always brushed every worry of his aside and told him it would be okay-and she meant it too. She was the only one who meant it when she said it would be okay and now here she was. Dead.

He couldn't wrap his mind around-it but he supposed nobody really could. She was gone. Ty would've given anything for her to tell him he was wrong on this. Of all things to be wrong about...this is what he wanted it to be.

He looked up at Nat, who was facing the front, not taking her eyes off the casket. Her gaze was cold and unnerving. Leaning over, he reached out to hold her hand in his smaller one. She looked down at him for a moment, not saying a word but also not retracting her hand from the little boy's.

She shouldn't be here. At her dead friend's funeral. She didn't _go_ to funerals, she was really here for Ty. He deserved some closure. But would he even remember her? He was little, he could forget much easier than she could. Nat sighed, leaning her head back. This altercation was painful enough, why did there need to be a funeral to top it all off?

Very few people went up to talk. Logan did which was...a disaster. Nat said that if Ty wanted to he could go up but he wanted to keep all his love for Dom to himself. Why would he give it away now that she was gone and couldn't give him anymore? No. He wasn't going to go up.

Though, when Tweety got up everything started to collapse even more. He could barely get through the first few lines of what he had wrote, and to be honest the paper was covered in tears by now, before Nat got up to stand next to him, leaving Ty to sit on the bench alone. He watched as she comforted him and whispered a few things that were inaudible to the small church crowd. Whatever she said caused Tweety to pull himself _ever so slightly_ together and continue speaking. At the end of it all he turned to the casket and pulled something from his jacket pocket and placed it gently under the merc's cold fingers. It looked like some sort of ticket. Nat led him down from the podium.

When the two finally returned to sit back down on the bench the only thing Tweety could manage to do was lean forward and bury his head in his hands. Nat placed a loving hand on his back for a moment before looking down at Ty.

"You want to go home?" She asked softly. He didn't want to. He wanted to stay with Dom.

"Yes."

Once they had arrived back at the apartment everything became dull and transparent. For him at least. Tweety and Nat talked for a little bit while Ty tried to nap in Dom's bedroom. It felt like she was in there. Her smell was still there but not her. Eventually his mind became fuzzy and he managed to get a little bit of sleep.

He was woken up to Nat briskly moving through Dom's room, grabbing cardboard boxes out of the closet.

"What're you doing?" The sleepy boy asked, watching as she began removing things from the room and closet and bathroom, tossing them into the box she had now placed outside of the door.

"Cleaning." She replied flatly. Ty pushed himself up and slid carefully off the bed. He made his way over to Nat, attempting to push her out of Dom's room. Of course he lacked the strength to do so, which the late mutant always loved to point out. Becoming aggravated, Nat forcefully shoved the little kid away from her.

"Cut it out Tyler." Again, flat. Her attitude had drastically changed from the one she had at the funeral to now. Tweety was gone and she barely seemed bothered by the lack of Dom's presence anymore. Her only task was to clear out Domino's room so that it wasn't taking up an unnecessary amount of space-considering she wouldn't be returning to it. In her head she made plans. She would go through the clothes and probably give them away only keeping things that she herself could wear. Dom had a nice bed, maybe she could replace Ty's with it. The weapons she would keep for sure. Everything else would go; though there wasn't much more. Dom didn't keep many items of sentimental value-and if she did Nat didn't know where to look for them.

"You're getting rid of her stuff!" Ty's voice pulled her out of her headspace, now standing in Dommy's doorway he began going through the box Nat was putting together and removing all the things she'd packed away. It hurt to much. Why was she doing this to him? He didn't want to forget his Dommy. Not ever.

"Because she's dead, Ty." Walking over to him, Nat pulled the mourning boy away from the box.

"We should keep these for her incase she comes back!" Ty shouted as he was pulled away.

Nat shook her head, she understood that he couldn't fully understand yet but she didn't have time for it. She was ready to move on and the only way to do that was to remove every trace of the mutant—at least from their home. Ty thought opposite of course. Now kneeling down to be eye to eye with the little boy and grabbing his shoulders, Nat's words became harsher.

"She's dead. We went to her funeral and she's dead."

"It was just a box, Natter! An empty box!" Ty shouted again in an attempt to reason. He wasn't wrong. Dom's body wasn't physically there. None of it made sense. He wanted to see her, to give her a hug only for her to push him away with a loving sound of disgust.

"I know it's an empty box! I know this. But we went for you so you could at least try and say goodbye to her. Because she's gone,Tyler, she's gone and she's not coming back. Never. I don't know what happened. I don't know why she's dead. But no matter how hard you try, Tyler, it's never going to make sense because _**it doesn't**_." The aggravation was quite apparent now. The assassin wanted to just shake him until he understood but she knew he couldn't. Not right now at least.

Ty just nodded now crying, but silent crying. Nat wiped his face off before returning to emptying Dom's room. He didn't try to stop her this time. He sat on the bed, hugging one of her pillows against his chest and watching until the room was basically stripped of everything it contained with the exception of the furniture.

"She's probably mad at you."

"Probably." Nat says, picking Ty up and taking him out of the room.

"No, I want to stay in there."

She set him down outside of the door before shutting it. "No, we're not going back in there today."

"Why?!" Ty shouted, stomping his feet as he followed Natasha into the kitchen.

"Forget about her, Ty."

But he had already tried forgetting. When he took his nap he tried forgetting and that didn't work. It wasn't ever going to work. Nat had forgotten her whole life and now she killed people. He didn't want to end up like that. He didn't want to forget Dommy.

"Will you forget her?" He asked.

There wasn't an answer. She turned a bit in the kitchen to open the freezer.

"Do you want pancakes for dinner?"

"What're you having?"

"Nothing. I'm going to work."

Ty felt like his heart was being ripped to pieces. She was going to _work?_ Dom went to work and now she was dead! How could she do this to him? " **No**!" He shouted. "You'll die!"

"I'm not going to die." She rolled her eyes and put some pancakes in the microwave to heat up.

"You don't know that." He mumbled, slumping onto the couch. "Dom didn't know she was going to die."

"Nobody knows when they're going to die, Tyler." Nat let out a frustrated breath before taking out his pancakes and placing them on the table. "Don't think about that."

Ty ate quietly. He didn't want to think about all the bad. Too much bad had happened. Nat had gone into her room to change while he ate dinner. After a bit she came out to find the little boy watching some stupid cartoon on the couch. "That stuff rots your brain." She mumbled, turning it off.

"I can't feel my brain rotting." He told her, his eyebrows furrowing at the expression.

"That doesn't matter anyways because you're going to bed."

Tyler scrunched his nose but didn't argue. He didn't mind going to bed, maybe he could see Dom if he dreamed hard enough. "In Dommy's room?" He asked as Nat lifted him off of the couch.

"No." She shook her head and instead put him on her bed. "You can sleep in here tonight."

Ty looked around at the walls. There weren't many pictures to begin with but the ones that had contained Dom were no longer there. "You don't have to erase her just because she's dead."

There was a pause, Nat stared at him for a moment before pulling up the blanket to tuck him in.

"Yes I do." She finally responded, her voice was dry. "Go to sleep Tyler."

"When will you be back?"

"When you wake up."

"No dying?"

Again, there was a pause. "Yeah, no dying."

Tyler nodded, curling up against a pillow. He didn't really believe what she said was true but it was comforting to hear the words.

Natasha took a moment to sit on the edge of the bed with him before going to shut off the lights and head out. "Goodnight, Natter."

"'Night, TyTy."

"Say, 'Night Dommy.' too."

"...Night Dommy." She spoke almost too quiet for Ty to hear. But he knew she said it. Ty was quiet for a moment, listening to Nat out in the living room grabbing her bag and keys, then the sound of the door shutting and the deadbolt locking. Off she went, just like Dom to her inevitable fate. Maybe not this time but-eventually. He hoped it wasn't soon though. Losing Dom made his heart hurt too much.

"Night Dommy." He whispered into the dark room.

"And don't worry, I think Natter misses you lots. She just pretends not to so her heart doesn't hurt so bad." He added on quickly for good measure; although, Dom probably already knew that.


End file.
